"The parts of the economy that have been weakest recently, housing and retail, are now picking up and we expect that, into the second half of the year, this will continue," he said.

Mr Bloxham said the retail sales figures would reduce the case for further interest rate cuts, although the weak global economy meant the Reserve Bank was likely to cut the cash rate at least once more this year.

NAB senior economist Spiros Papadopoulos said the Clean Energy Advance payments that began being rolled out by the government in May would have helped boosted retail spending.

"In June the boost will be even larger as households received the School Kids bonus that month, too," he said.

"With the upward revision to April, retail sales have now been positive in each month of 2012, so retailing in the first half of 2012 has not been as bad as some industry anecdotes might have suggested."

Treasurer Wayne Swan said the increase in spending was reasonably broad-based and provided more evidence of the resilience of the Australian economy.

"Despite today's positive result, we know that parts of our retail sector remain under pressure from changing consumer preferences and the more cautious consumer behaviour that we've seen since the GFC."

But Australian Retailers Association executive director Russell Zimmerman said the upward trend in retail sales could be short lived.

"The current reality for retailers is every time there is a modest boost such as this, increased economic pressure creates a barrier to any continuation of the trend," he said.